The Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) expects its power sales volume to increase by 5 percent in the second half of the year and 4 percent for the entire year.
This is amid a projected record sales and net income in 2023.
Ferdinand Geluz, Meralco first vice president and chief commercial officer for customer retail services, in a briefing last week said this semester’s sales performance will be driven by residential and commercial customers.
The company projects its income to reach P30 billion from last year’s P27.1 billion.
Meralco said power rates this month may decrease due to lower demand for power and wholesale electricity spot market (WESM) prices, among other factors.
“While we have yet to receive the final billings from our suppliers, we expect a possible decrease in the generation charge this month. We’ve seen reduced demand in the last supply month, which likely led to lower WESM prices,” said Joe Zaldarriaga, Meralco vice president and head of corporate communications, in a statement.
“The quarterly repricing of Malampaya will also reflect the lower crude prices over the past six months. The peso appreciation, which affects suppliers’ costs that are mostly dollar denominated, will also help further pull down the generation charge. We are optimistic these factors would be enough to bring down the overall electricity rate for this month,” Zaldarriaga added.
Meralco is yet to announce this month’s official power rate movement but if the projected drop proceeds, it will be the second consecutive decline with last month’s P0.7213 per kilowatt hour reduction.
